Magazin: We shouldn’t turn our backs on plastics

According to Miklós Nagy, secretary general of the Hungarian Association of Packaging and Materials Handling (CSAOSZ), lots of negative information has been circulating in the media about packaging, especially plastic packaging.

Miklós Nagy
secretary general
CSAOSZ

At the autumn CSAOSZ conference a presentation about how to develop sustainable packaging designs revealed that there are four aspects of this kind of work: serving the purpose, efficiency, safety and being suitable for the circular economy. Serving the purpose means that sustainability considerations don’t threaten the packaging design’s ability to protect the product. Efficiency can be achieved by minimising raw material use – revealed Mr Nagy. He told about the safety aspect that today many people emphasise the necessity of integrating secondary raw material into virgin packaging material, but manufacturers must also calculate with the strict rules regulating the direct contact of packaging with food.

Packaging innovations cover four areas: raw material, processing, technology use and waste utilisation. In the raw material domain nanotechnology is increasingly important – instead of 6-7 uses paper fibres can now be used 9-10 times, while plastics will stay strong even if less raw material is used making them. The secretary general also mentioned degradable packaging solutions, from which the best-known is PLA.

As for technological development, efficiency is key her as well – both material and energy utilisation need to reduce. In safety it is important to do selective waste collection well, so that clean packaging waste is used in recycling and the secondary raw material produced has the potential to replace virgin or primary materials. Mr Nagy stressed that the trade has high hopes about the improvement in chemical recycling technology.

Since public opinion is currently very negative about plastics, many companies have reacted to his by replacing it with another material when developing new designs. CSAOSZ’s first man told that with certain shrink wrap solutions replacement with carton or corrugated board isn’t a good idea. Why? It is true that less plastic waste is generated this way, but the new packaging design puts a more complex burden on the environment. He thinks we shouldn’t turn our backs on plastics, as with relatively small raw material use plastic packaging can be manufactured on very efficient production lines, and these designs protect products very well. //